Why did Google buy YouTube for $ 1.6B? And why did Google, in 2009, plan to buy Twitter – from the same guys they bought Blogger.com, in 2004, for an undisclosed sum?

What interest Facebook to offer half a billion dollars to buy Twitter.com?

The answer lies on the same concept why Yahoo is offering almost all services for free.

Any answer? They all attracts free traffic – millions of it.

The advent of social media nowdays make internet marketing very very popular. You can get free organic traffic and there are lots of ways you can market your product or services through these medium.

Social media marketing has become a very big platform as it keeps more number of people connected on a day-to-day basis. It keeps you glued to the activity and contribute, though virtual, in a real life manners. Think of FarmVille from Facebook and Second Life – it keeps you involve and participate. This is the reason why companies with deep pocket are investing big money on internet and one of the most efficient and powerful methods is social network marketing.

What factor does Facebook, Twitter and MySpace has in common? They have millions of millions of active virtual users all over the globe interacting through these websites. These sites allows people from all walks of life to update, in real time what they are doing, post what they are thinking, poke to some of their friends or just say hello to Grand Pa who is living thousands of miles away – in real time . Powerful features, is not?

We all know the fact that Facebook is one of the most popular sites for social network on the Internet.

Network marketers, social marketer and internet marketers have found "marketing tools" never known to ordinary users. This tool is non other than fan page. They use fan pages for a wide range of purposes. You can create one fan page and come up with a page to market your product, to market your company or simply to brand your identity in this virtual world. The impact of this "marketing tool" is so powerful that, in a short span of time, I have witnessed ordinary people make an incredible amount of money online from this tool alone.

You can start interacting with potential customers once you have this fan page ready. You can also regularly update with latest news related to your products or services. You can also use the concept of Facebook ads and use this as a tool for social network marketing. The ads that you're going to create can also be regular static ads which will attract various potential customers to come to your profile page. Are you now getting a clear picture now why this tool is so powerful?

The other feature that you can use is the ability to come up with quiz or polls. You can also gain a better idea about the preferences or interests of the people who can be out until customers. This way you can increase your sales.

You can also use MySpace for social network marketing. Most of the tools that are present in the Facebook are also found in MySpace. Some people are also using Twitter in order to market and brand themselves. You can use all this social networking sites in order to reach more number of people. If more number of people are interested in you then you can make more number of sales conversions.

In general, more free traffic from this social sites means more views and some of these views converts to sales – provided you have a targeted niche.

Do you have a product? Are you an Affiliate Marketer? Social media is the solution and this Holy Grail of free traffic is here to stay.